"The time for clarification has come," says Marcus Traut, the Wiesbaden lawyer for Eswe Managing Director Jörg Gerhard, who is about to be fired.

According to Traut, Gerhard will comment on the previously known allegations against him at Eswe's supervisory board meeting on Monday, despite the short deadline.

He will do everything for a careful clarification of the facts, it says in a statement to the media.

Oliver Bock

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung for the Rheingau-Taunus district and for Wiesbaden.

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Gerhard only found out about the investigation against him from the press.

The public prosecutor's office has not yet told him what he is specifically accused of.

That's why he hasn't been able to comment on it yet.

He has only been aware of the reports from the corporate audit department and the law firm Dierlamm, which advises the supervisory board, since Tuesday evening.

As reported, Gerhard is accused in these two reports, among other things, of having unlawfully favored works councils and having overpaid employees.

"Years of mismanagement" at Eswe

Meanwhile, the FDP agrees with the criticism of the two smaller opposition factions in the Wiesbaden city council and criticizes the alleged scandal at Eswe Verkehr in particular the chairman of the supervisory board and transport department head Andreas Kowol (Die Grünen).

This is responsible for the conditions worthy of criticism and the "years of mismanagement" in the municipal transport company.

Since Kowol took over responsibility four years ago, costs have “exploded”, employee satisfaction has fallen and one affair has followed the other, says the group leader Christian Diers.

Wiesbaden is now facing the shambles of its failed transport policy.

The traffic department assigned Eswe more and more tasks without equipping the company accordingly.

The change from a successful bus company to a comprehensive mobility service provider for a traffic turnaround in Wiesbaden failed.

Allegations and warnings from the FDP with regard to Eswe Verkehr were not followed up by Kowol "out of political expediency" and instead denied all difficulties.

From the point of view of the FDP, city politics must in future strictly adhere to their own corporate governance code: politicians set the framework and take care of strategic control.

The operational responsibility lies with the management.

At Eswe Verkehr, this principle was repeatedly violated by interventions by the department.